Roland Hayes 1924 Chicago Concert (Madam Walker Family Archives of A'Lelia Bundles/www.aleliabundles.com)
I learned to read music on a Chickering baby grand piano that had belonged to my great-grandmother, A’Lelia Walker, but it really was my mother, A’Lelia Mae Perry Bundles, and my grandmother, Mae Walker Perry, who had musical talent. As the only legally adopted daughter of A’Lelia Walker and granddaughter of entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, Mae had been afforded many privileges, including harp lessons and enrollment at Spelman College.
Several years ago, I discovered this program from lyric tenor Roland Hayes’s January 15, 1924 program at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall among Mae’s personal belongings. It now is part of my Madam Walker/A’Lelia Walker Family Archives. At the time of the concert, Mae recently had moved to Chicago. Like others in the city’s black community, she had looked forward to hearing Hayes sing selections–including Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” black British composer (more…)
A'Lelia Walker's Sterling Silver Flask (from the Madam Walker/A'Lelia Walker Family Archives of A'Lelia Bundles www.aleliabundles.com)
Now that I’m into the serious writing phase of my new biography of A’Lelia Walker (1885-1931), my great-grandmother and the only daughter of entrepreneur and philanthropist Madam C. J. Walker, I’ll be posting more stories about the discoveries I’ve been making.
I’m truly fortunate to have inherited a trove of letters, clothes, furniture and other personal items that belonged to the Walker women. Among them is this flask.
A’Lelia Walker rarely missed a Howard-Lincoln football game between 1918 and 1931. This rivalry –as legendary among African Americans as the Harvard-Yale competition was to Ivy Leaguers–brought thousands of alumni and friends together each Thanksgiving Day, alternating between Philadelphia (the closest big city to Lincoln’s rural Pennsylvania campus) and Washington, DC.(more…)
When you write for a living, you never know where your words will land. You always hope your messages will make a difference, but there’s no guarantee. Yesterday was one of those days that made it all worthwhile.
I’d heard earlier this year about the smart young sisters of Watoto from the Nile, who had challenged Lil Wayne to clean up his misogynistic act, but with so much Internet overload I’d never gotten around to viewing it. Imagine my surprise when (more…)
She also sat for Greenwich Village resident, Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), one of the premiere photographers of the 20th century and a protegee of Man Ray. Perhaps best known for her dramatic black-and-white photographs of New York City architecture during the 1930s, Abbott also was an accomplished portrait photographer.
Sylvia Beach, the American owner of Paris’s Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, once said, “To be ‘done’ by Man Ray or Berenice Abbott meant you rated as somebody.” (more…)
I’m having a great time going through C-Span Book TV’s archives. Hard to believe my book, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, is a decade old. Here’s the presentation at the Charles H. Wright Museum in Detroit that launched the book tour. The audience was wonderfully warm and that evening my college classmate, Sandra Jenkins, hosted a gathering at her home with other college friends including Phyllis James, Norma Cassell and Linda Hotchkiss.
At the time of the concert, Mae recently had moved to Chicago. Like others in the city’s black community, she had looked forward to hearing Hayes sing selections–including Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” black British composer (more…)
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